Jocasta's Child
by Little Tanuki
Summary: She was Queen of Thebes, regal and magnificent, mother and wife to Oedipus the King. But on her final hour, she cannot help but wonder. Was her life ever really her own? Retelling of Oedipus myth.
1. Chapter 1

_I see the dagger. My dagger - it has been in my family for as long as living memory. Nothing in my life has ever been more inviting. Not since I was a baby enfolded in the arms of my wet-nurse have I ever been this certain of anything. And as I hold it up to the light, I consider how I might answer one final question. Should I aim at my heart, or at my womb?_

* * *

I was married in a shroud, a gossamer veil draped over my face to hide the gleam of tears. Chalcione arranged my hair. Arenthe fussed a little as she fastened the rows of bracelets along my wrists. And little Daphne knelt at my feet to tie the sandals just above my pale white ankles. "Beautiful," the oldest of them whispered, stroking a tear from my face with one rough thumb. Then, seeing that I was ready, they arranged the veil across my head and shoulders.

I had heard the name Laius, but only in passing. I had heard that he was tall, and old - like a greying mountain bear. But at the age of thirteen, I was his now. I was marrying a king, and no other man would ever be allowed to see me unshrouded.

The shroud was most appropriate, I thought, ignoring the hollow pains in my chest and in my long, slender throat. Because at the age of thirteen - that was when I died.

* * *

The swaying of my litter finally ceased, and one of the bearers took my hand. I stepped from it, finally to gaze upon the face of my husband. A row of men watched me descend, a row of old, sombre faces and dark-edged manes, several of them fringed with reefs of grey. String-thin sandals slapped quietly on the smooth stone of the floor. My hidden face looked towards them - all those men with their short, thick limbs, and with their hair and beards draped over each heavy chest so much broader than my own.

On that day, I held the knowledge of the damned. My fate had been decided long ago. I was a Princess of Achaea - soon to be a Queen. I had no more control over my own destiny than I had over the path I took across the lengthy, high-ceilinged hall. Given the choice, I would just as certainly not have approached that altar. But the planets had to move along their own set paths, and so did I.

Laius' mouth was tight and broad, his face set into a gruff mask, and his long, dark hair and beard already streaked with ribbons of silver. I was tiny, small even for my age. And the Theban king was huge, vital - as unshakable as a boulder half buried beneath the Earth.

Piercing hazel eyes stared from beneath jutting eyebrows, burning, intelligent and alive. But still, I discovered with some disappointment, I could not set aside the thought that I was looking into the face of Thanatos. Death. His calloused hand reached forward as my father Oenameus passed my own hand into his. It was easily twice the size, tight around my palm, and rough to the touch like rubbing my skin against gritted sand.

My father's voice rang clearly across the room, but I did not look into the eyes of any watching men. I heard him speak as though from the far end of a steep, dividing canyon. "I give you this woman for the bearing of legitimate children."

It was done. We were married, and from this moment on, Jocasta Daughter of Oenameus was as dead as the shades beneath the ground.

* * *

_In the greater part of my memory, I am watching my father as though from a tremendous distance - myself standing at the end of the palace grounds, while he stands at the other. His face in my thoughts is as the face of a marble statue, at the stage before the sculptor finally begins to shape the final details._

_But his hair, I shall never fail to remember. It is long, the colour of fresh honey when the gold of sunlight shines through from behind._

Laius' hair was much darker, but when I lay with him on that first night, my thoughts were of Oenameus. It was a bad omen. I said nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_"It is true," Arenthe told me. "There _is_ pain in the bearing of children. But there is also joy. The creation of new life is a wonderful mystery, and this gift is our own. It is the gift we as women were given by the gods themselves. Men may bellow and brag, and they may have control over all other things. But this place is our own, and I would not exchange it for all the battle-pride in the world."_

"_Why?" I asked her. It was funny when Arenthe talked like this, and at nine years old, I was not entirely sure whether to be amused, confused, or perhaps a little scared._

"_Because it is the woman's own mystery." She ran a comb lightly through my hair. I enjoyed the smooth, comforting rhythm of her hands. Three daughters, the woman had borne. Daphne was the youngest, and all were slaves. I wondered that she could still be saying these things, when every child she had would almost certainly come to share that fate. "One day, you will understand, Princess. And that day will be a day of joy."_

_She turned me around, and even then the smile upon her face had been the tender expression of a fond old woman. "May the gods grant you good fortune, and healthy sons," she told me. "I cannot think of a greater blessing. Now, run along and play. It will soon be time for supper."_

* * *

My monthly cycle usually came with the approach of the Full Moon, but when it did not, it was not a long time before I discovered that my handmaidens were all watching me even more closely. "Let us hope," Chalcione told me, the smile of anticipation plain upon her face. "There are several possibilities, but certainly one more likely than the others."

But when the sickness came, even she grew close to certain.

It was Daphne, the youngest, who was given the task of carrying my good news to Laius, King of Thebes. And it _was _good news, I told myself even as my stomach threatened to leap away from its place at my belly. If the will of the gods was favourable, the king's fourteen year old wife would be quicker than anticipated in giving him a child.

When Daphne returned she was flushed and tense with lowered eyes. "The King sends me to deliver you to him, Lady," was all that she would say of what had passed between them.

Deliberately shaping my face to a mask, hiding a fresh grimace as the queasy discomfort of early pregnancy threatened to overwhelm me once again, I hauled myself from my seated position until I was somewhat balanced on both unsteady feet. Arenthe rested a hand upon my arm. "It will ease, Lady," she promised.

"When?" I demanded, unable to prevent a series of gasps from entering my voice. "When will it?"

"With time."

With an even greater effort than I had ever thought myself capable, I regained enough composure to make my own way - unaided - to the hall where my king was waiting. Seeing him arrayed, magnificent as Lord Zeus himself, in the robes of his office, I bowed low and paid no heed to the unsteadiness of the stone beneath me. "Husband," I said.

"My queen." Laius' response was equally distant. His cold, level eyes had gained an overlay of storm-silver from the stone of the room, and he rose to both feet like a mountain waking. Equally regal as I met his gaze, the daughter of Oenameus hated him.

"I am told that you may be with child, Lady Jocasta," he commented, stiff and formal. "This is good news for our family, and good news for Thebes. I shall travel tomorrow to consult with the Oracle, and if the news remains favourable, there will be celebrations in the city."

My knees were still shaking, feet unsteady on the marble floor, and my stomach still twisted inside me like a knotted thread that had snagged in its loom. But I held back on accepting Arenthe's assistance as I retreated, one step at a time, to the welcome security of my chambers.

* * *

_Ever since Pandora, the first woman ever created, was introduced into the world, there has been a single purpose for our existence. To provide the children of men with a vessel in which they can grow and develop, until they are heavy inside us and our backs ache with the act of supporting their weight. But a married woman is an outsider, a foreign element in the established family of her husband. They have never truly had any trust for us, and it is likely that they never will._

_Agave tore the head from her only son and paraded it through the forests of Thebes. Her sister Ino clasped both young children to her side and carried them over the cliffs, their shattered bodies left to wash into the sea. Women of Thebes are too often as unfortunate as those they have carried to term. So it comes as little surprise that there will be no celebrations in the city upon the king's return._

_It is the goddess Hestia who comes to me in the night, hair cascading over both pale shoulders and the billowing cloth of her chiton._

"_You will find no luck in this union." Her voice is not as harsh as I had expected it to be, but she speaks with no more feeling than the crack of a hearth-fire. "Nor in this child."_

"_Why?" I ask. Tears are wet upon my cheeks, and I do not understand how this should be. "What god have I offended? What have I done that was so very wrong?"_

"_Jocasta," she says. "The Fates themselves have cursed your union. It was no other god. The Fates themselves have cursed your son."_


	3. Chapter 3

Arenthe told me wrongly about the pain that came with giving birth. This was nothing like she had ever described it. This was agony.

_What did I do_? I demanded of the Olympian gods, of the ghosts of my ancestors, of the Fates, and every one of those who failed to answer my call. _What did I do to deserve such tearing inside_?

Actaeon had glimpsed the form of the goddess Artemis. He'd watched her bathing naked, captured by the beautiful sight as though within a snare. With his transformation, the goddess had turned him from hunter to prey. She took the role of predator, every bit as much as the prince's ravening hounds.

I was burning, torn apart. Every pain of breaking flesh was as harsh as the teeth of Actaeon's dogs. Sweat was sticky upon my face, blood and mucus slick between my legs, and my screams were as inhuman as his death cries must have been. But with no sharp teeth sinking into my skin. Whatever was pulling me apart, it was breaking me from deep inside - barely if ever touching my skin.

"Not long now, Lady," Chalcione assured me between my screams. "Not long now."

Daphne stood by, ready with a warm cloth to wrap around the child once it emerged. Her eyes were wide, mouth hanging open at the very first time she had ever witnessed this mystery. Chalcione crouched at my feet, monitoring every stage as the life within me forced its way into the world.

"Just one more…"

It was one final chance, one final scream as I clenched and pushed and wailed like one of the vengeful Erinyes. The child shifted, bursting outwards, until finally we were apart, and a long, plaintive cry was clear as any sound in the room. My body responded in kind, milk seeping forth from my breasts, and with every though gathered into a yearning as deep as the widest sea.

I longed to take the child to me, to offer my touch, my warmth and love - but I was too weak to lift myself from the cushions at my back, all the while drifting like a feather in the wind.

"Daphne," said Arenthe from somewhere in the distance, speaking as though from the other side of a vast, dark canyon. "Take the child to his father."

_His father_… My eyes were closing. _His_… _I have a son_…

_Poor little baby, having to come into this world, with all its cruelty waiting especially for you. You do not know what this life can be, but you will learn. Oh, by all the gods, you will learn…_

The old woman's rough fingers brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. Her other hand wrapped itself around mine.

"You did well, Lady Jocasta. And now your work is done. It is time to rest now. Sleep."

* * *

"My Lady." A voice spoke softly in the darkness. I turned my head towards it, but it was still so heavy, eyes slow to open, and my lips would not move more than a little way. The only reply for the one at my side was lost in a whisper - a breath without words.

"Lady Jocasta." It was Daphne. Her own voice was small, and carried no happiness. She waited until I had opened my eyes and finally located the shadow of her face. I saw her hesitate, tears pooling in her eyes. Watching me sadly, she spoke with such quiet reluctance. Even before she spoke, I knew - I would have no real wish to hear her words.

"I bring sad news, Lady. Your husband did not take your son as his own. King Laius has ordered the infant's death."

_As is his right_, I forced myself to remember - even as the reminder clenched like tangled rope around my heart. _As it his right_.

Sleep was fast returning, as if to steal away the little light I could see. But I felt no desire for the day to endure. What is sight when nothing that you see is ever beautiful? Tears trailed wetly across both cheeks, and my eyes grew heavy. I was returning to a world of warmth and darkness. But there was one image to which I clung, the last to fade from my awareness. It was the face of a child, my baby boy. The face that I had never seen and was sure that I would never see again.

* * *

_The box of ills had been Epimetheus' as much as it was Pandora's. He had been the careless one, the one who had failed to secure it away, and failed to trust her with the secret of why it was so very important not to peer inside._

_Husband mine, Sovereign of the city, and killer of my son. I am your wife, and my body has always been yours to command. This is why I will lie with you, allow you inside me, and endure your drunken, wine-soaked kisses._

_You may caress me, run those greasy hands across my skin until the night grows dark and you pass out at my side from too much drink. My body will be yours, but not my soul. You will never have my soul._

* * *

In the days since my son was carried to the mountain, the milk within me dried to nothing and my body returned to what it might once have been - although I still carried some residual weight of pregnancy. Even the pain of childbirth faded with the passing hours.

Strangely, it saddened me that I no longer felt that clear, definable ache, as though its loss had pushed away the last proof that I'd ever had a son. His birth, the pregnancy, and all the moments afterward were no more verifiable than a vivid waking dream.

"Do not cry, Lady." Arenthe paused with the ivory comb still clasped in one knobbled hand. "It may not seem that way now, but the sadness inside you will lessen with time."

"You always say that," I told her, my words hauntingly quiet and low. "You always tell me that everything will get better, and it never does." Rather than allow myself to look upon her wizened face, I turned my gaze to my own tearful eyes, reflected in the mirror.

"The child is gone, Jocasta," whispered Arenthe with a shake of her head. "Sometimes it just happens that way. It is a father's choice. There is nothing to be gained by allowing your soul to wither and dry."

My anger was as sharp as a dagger at my heart. "You presume to tell me how to feel?" I raged, at Arenthe, Laius, his city, and a world that would allow such useless pain. And now I did look at her, my anger fuelled by the sight of those suddenly horrified and yet so obliging eyes. "Know your place, old woman. I am your mistress, and you are my servant. You do _not _tell me how to feel."


	4. Chapter 4

I was twenty years old, with the appearance of someone far taller although I had not really grown at all since marrying the thick-boned king. Well proportioned, like a statue carved from pale, smooth marble and set at the centre of the palace courtyard. Whispers reached me from the city's population. They saw me every bit as that imagined statue, noble and upright, unreachable, unmalleable as the stone of the Theban streets.

But no matter what else came to pass, one fact remained to dampen my reputation as Queen. In the five years since my child was born, I had given Laius no more sons.

With the approach of Autumn, many trees were turning to the colours of a red sunset. Gardeners worked in the outdoor grounds, and I watched from within as one paused a moment to smile at a blue-jay. But then the slave turned, so that his back was to me, distracted by a pair of tall, wiry figures as they crossed the border of the garden.

And just as suddenly, the day was much brighter, each ray of sunshine as welcome as sweet liquid honey. Tingling with anticipation, I stepped back and waited to be summoned to my husband's side.

* * *

A visitor approached the high-ceilinged hall, deep inside the palace of Thebes where the king and I sat in a prominent position at the very end. I had known the man for many years. The first we met had been when I was little more than a chubby faced child, laughing happily in the home of my father. The old seer Tiresias was not particularly large, although at that time he'd seemed like a giant from one of the old stories.

Nonetheless, he was every bit as striking as his reputation suggested, with clouded eyes, and skin as dark as forest oak. He was still further touched by the wind and years, until he had grown rough on the surface - just like an ancient, thick-skinned dryad.

Some people said that his blindness was a punishment, for revealing deep secrets that were never meant to be revealed. But others claimed with equal conviction that it was a gift, that his view of the future would not have been half as clear were he able to see the road before him. Whatever the truth, he moved confidently, unimpeded through the palace grounds. And without the seer's gift, he had told my father once, he himself would not have been so readily welcomed into the company of gods and kings.

Nobody knew his true age, and if it weren't for his god-endowed powers of divination, I might have doubted that he even knew it himself. It was one of those secrets that he would never tell, and his roughened face rarely afforded any clues.

"My Lord King." He greeted Laius first, turning to face him directly although his milky eyes remained unfocused. The youth who was his guide stepped a little to one side. Muscles rose beneath the skin of Tiresias' arms as he tightened his grip upon the long and twisted staff. He redirected his attention to me, and his voice softened. "Lady Queen."

And now, he bowed low. "Many thanks for your gracious hospitality."

"Tiresias seer has always been welcome in Thebes," my husband replied. "And that is a tradition which will not change as long as I am King."

Our guest bowed again. I sensed that my own expression was also shifting. It was the closest in a long time I had ever come to a smile.

* * *

_There is something so pleasant about the act of weaving - from the smooth dance of my arms, to the rhythm of the loom, and the hypnotic motion which captures my attention until I have forgotten all else around me. I let the rhythm flood my soul, relax my arms until I am moving as fluidly as a floating reed upon a lake._

* * *

"Lady Jocasta."

I stopped, looking away from my cloth, and saw Daphne standing at the entrance to my chambers. Calcione was beside her, and guided the younger girl forward two steps. "Tell the Mistress what you have heard."

Daphne hesitated. Standing upright, I moved to face her directly. "What did you hear?"

"Whispers in the marketplace," the girl responded. Her voice was low, breathy, pale hands clasped against her belly. "About the words of the Oracle. Your husband. Your child…"

I felt the expression in my eyes turn hard. "Then I wish to know what those rumours have been."

Daphne kneaded her hands, looking down, and now her voice was even softer - far more reluctant than it had been before. "There is a story that… that five years ago, when your son was born… Master Laius… The Oracle told him…" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "If he allowed his first born son to live, then he would be destined to die at that boy's hands."

"Who told you this?" Either there was steel in my voice, or it was weeping.

Daphne's words were definitely fringe with the beginnings of an anxious sob. "Nobody told me. It is what people say in the market square. Sometimes, when you send me there, I listen. And…"

"And did anyone say whether they believe it?"

"I do not know, Lady. But the Master appears to have done."

"That is not for you to comment," I scolded her. Daphne bowed her head.

"I am sorry, Mistress."

"So." Rising to my feet, I crossed to the narrow window, which looked out across the inner courtyard. "A father kills a son before that son is old enough to be a threat to him." But my pensive mood had turned to a troubled, anxious scowl. "No. It's not enough. In a royal household, sons killing fathers is scarcely enough to indicate a curse of the Fates."

Daphne was silent for a moment, but as she looked away from me, I could see the storms of conflict pass across her eyes. "Daphne?"

"There _was_ more, Lady Jocasta," she confessed with some reluctance. But then she fell silent again.

"And what was that, Daphne?" I let a little impatience seep into my query. It was not a slave's place to decide how much was good for her queen to know. And now her dark eyes had grown wide and fearful.

"Mistress, Lady… The murder of King Laius is not all that doomed this child. The Oracle… the Oracle told Laius of a further curse that held his destiny. If he'd been allowed to become a man, he would have grown to be wedded to you."


	5. Chapter 5

_"Mother."_

_A voice calls in the darkness. It is small, near impossible to hear in the echoing halls of the palace, but I follow it from one end to the other of the throne room - where I share a place with Laius as his queen. At the back of the hall is an exit, leading towards the inner rooms. The call leads me towards it._

"_Where are you?" I call in return - although my own voice is little stronger than that of the invisible boy._

_Then finally, I see him. He is watching at the farthest end of the room. Small, and proud, and five years old. His head is topped by a tangle of curly black hair, just as I have imagined him in my daydreams. He stretches his arms towards me, and as I approach, he continues his high plaintive calls._

"_Mother…"_

_I see him clearly now. His eyes, his pale skin, and tiny hands. I cannot hold back a gasp of amazement. Alive. My son is alive, and calling to me. But then I step forward, and amazement turns to a wave of cold horror. Wrapped around the boy's slender fingers is the spider-soft fabric of a wedding veil._

_The sound of his voice still echoing in my ears, I awaken to my moonlit chamber._

* * *

"My servants tell me that there has been talk at the marketplace. Lord Tiresias, I have to know. Could any part of what I have heard possibly be the truth?"

He stopped walking, and I could see the pain and indecision momentarily creasing his face.

"You know what I mean, don't you? You know what the stories have been."

Finally, he sighed as though resigned - and began to speak.

"Long ago, when I was much younger than the man I am now, I passed by a glade and noticed that there were a pair of serpents entwined in the act of what we mortal creatures might call love. On that day, it is said that I was changed to a woman, and remained that way for seven years until the gods saw fit to transform me back into the man you see before you now."

"Is such a thing possible?" I asked - in part for his benefit, but more to give voice to my own uncertainty.

"Does it matter?" The old man offered me an enigmatic smile. "It is what people say. You ask for truth as though there is only one, but I cannot give you a decisive answer, because I do not believe that I have such an answer to give."

He continued to amble slowly along the path, pausing occasionally to smell the fresh aromas in the air. It carries scents from the market, the forest, and the distant salt of the ocean. "But Lady," he reminded me, his deep voice lowered until it was quiet enough that only he and I would hear. "Where there are multiple levels of truth in this world, there is also more than one meaning to every whisper. I believe that people and gods trust me not because of my affliction, or even my extra sight.

"It is true, I can look into the heart of the universe, and true that I see all that the Fates have seen. But the real reason that people look to me for advice, is not because I look into the thoughts of the universe, but because I look into their own. I see the world from their perspective, as well as I see it from mine. I know what it is to be them, and for that, they feel that I understand. And what I understand of you, Lady Jocasta, is that it would do you no service even if I could tell you everything."

"But what of my son?"

He stopped walking, a pained expression passing briefly across his face. "Maybe it is not my place, but I must say this. There are some questions that should never be asked. Please do not ask this of me."

"But, understand," I told him, grasping him by one strong arm. Just as suddenly, I recoiled. Even this fleeting, desperate touch was far from proper.

The old traveller's face was not angry. He did not scold, or even disapprove. The sadness in his milk-white eyes caused my chest to ache as though trapped and strangled by constricting rock.

"I am sorry, Lady, to have to confirm what you cannot possibly wish to know. But I sense that my words are not unexpected. Lady Jocasta, those things the Oracle told your husband. About you, himself, your child… It is all true."

"But…" Tears rimmed the base of my eyes, but when I spoke, my voice was even. "I am wedded to King Laius, and my son is dead."

Tiresias turned away, saying nothing.

"Master Tiresias, please. Tell me what you see."

"Blind men see nothing, Lady," he responded. Something else passed across his face - something very much like conflict, and uncertainty. It was the most disconcerting expression I had seen on any face, especially unaccustomed as I was to finding the great seer uncertain.

_He is hiding something_, I realised. But I made no more attempts to force him to speak.


	6. Chapter 6

Tiresias departed with the first cold rays of dawn, together with the dark, muscular youth who was his guide. With both visitors gone and Autumn chilling into a difficult Winter, life in the Theban palace returned to a steady accustomed routine. The absence of the kindly old seer was like an open wound upon our world. And yet, even this could close, in time.

Surrounded by the changing of seasons and the steady continuity of each passing day, I was comfortable in the company of my servants. Comfortable, settled in the midst of all their voices and the safe, predictable rhythm of my loom.

Warmth came gradually back to the city, and with it a subtle change in daily life as the household of my husband prepared for Spring. From the most crowded urban neighbourhoods to the outlying farms, the people of Thebes also readied themselves for the expected change in seasons.

There was a stall of figs at the marketplace, sold by an elderly man with hair as white as the fleece of a sacrificial lamb. According to Arenthe, he had started to sell his produce early. Her eyes crinkled at the corners whenever she spoke of this same old man. But the Winter had been especially hard this year - especially on my own aged servant. Her hair had turned to wisps of pure white, her face now pinched with frost and age.

I forbade her from venturing outside while the day was cold, in spite of her promises that she was as well as ever she'd been. But still she was unable to shake away a cough from recent ill health. Rather than journeying into the city herself, she sent her youngest daughter to fetch a basketful for the palace kitchen.

I chose to make no further mention of my elderly servant's health. There had never been a time when I had not trusted Arenthe, and I knew this old woman better than I had known any other in my life. Even for a slave, she was proud, and I found myself reluctant to damage that same pride.

"Has Daphne returned?" I asked instead as Arenthe shuffled away from where she had been stoking a warm hearth fire.

"No, Mistress," was her reply.

The awkward, even slightly clumsy child had grown into a tall and slender young woman, too often caught flirting with the older youths who worked in the palace gardens.

But her mother had instructed her to head straight for the kitchens before all else. She was to deliver the fresh produce from the market, and the head cook, Deidorus was expecting her. I held some hope that I would find her there, and this was where I would look before searching the rest of the palace.

There were few instances when a freeborn woman who would venture this close to the kitchens - even less for a queen. I smelt the odours of steam and baking combined with the sweat of those inside, and felt the same uncomfortable perspiration come to my brow in the instant that I entered.

I was met by the stares of five red-faced, well built slaves. But I would not stay long. "Where is Daphne?" I asked without hesitation.

One of the cooks glanced further along towards the back of the kitchen.

She sat in a corner, just as the slave had indicated, hands clenched against each other so that both pale, slender wrists were easily revealed. The olive-tinted pallor of her skin contrasted with her gleaming black hair, which had come out of its restraints to form a dark cloud over the greater part of her face.

"You were supposed to have returned to the women's quarters by now." I kept my voice deliberately hard, pitched almost as low as a man's.

"Mistress." The slave girl startled visibly, but did not reveal her face.

"Look at me," I commanded.

Daphne glanced momentarily towards me, and I saw in an instant that her face was swollen, with patches of pink and blue spread across her eye and lips. "Mistress, I'm sorry," she whispered. There were tears behind her voice.

"What happened?" I demanded of her, moving forward to take her by the wrists.

She lowered her eyes with a heavy sigh. "I was not pleasing to the master."

"Not pleasing? How?"

"I mean--" Her voice was even quieter now, choked. Barely a sound. "I was not… I did not… _Please _him."

Heat rose like a raging house fire to burn beneath the skin of my cheeks, and I felt it surge along one arm as it lashed up and forwards to strike Daphne across one side of her face. She fell, unable to hold back a cry of pain and alarm.

"Laius is my husband, little whore!" I screamed with all the power I could bring into my voice.

Daphne was shaking in a corner, fingers curled to clutch her head. Little was revealed of her, save for a tangle of cloth and hair, and one bare arm. But her sobs only added fuel to the rage that churned inside of me. "Get up," I ordered.

Instead, the girl hesitated, drawing her legs up even further. I bristled. What was she, a fool? Had the force of my hand or Laius' done something to addle her mind?

I spoke again. My voice was louder, and harder. "Get up."

Daphne staggered, hastening to obey although her face was still concealed behind a veil of thick, dark hair. I could see from the fearful trembling of her shoulders that she had not yet been able to stop her tears.


	7. Chapter 7

Word was quick to spread among the palace slaves, that Daphne had fallen from Laius' favour as easily as she had from mine. She did not respond to this turn in fortune - but kept her head bowed in the midst of her chores, scurrying through the halls like a startled mouse, saying nothing without being prompted, and answering only with hushed, single word replies.

I knew from those occasions when Arenthe glanced my way, that the old woman was longing to speak. There was a deep, melancholy sadness behind her eyes, saying so much more than words could have said. The elderly slave was closer to my heart than any other had ever been. Her pain was my pain, but I was unable to offer her any comfort in return.

So instead I would turn my face away, struggling without success to forget the lingering image of my most trusted servant's eyes.

Now was not a time for distractions. Laius was leaving on another one of his long and distant journeys, and protocol demanded that Lady Jocasta, Queen of Thebes should take the opportunity to farewell her now slightly aged king. Daphne and Chalcione were usually among the handmaidens who accompanied me on any of these official exchanges. But there were few in the royal household who could not have guessed why I elected to leave them both behind.

Laius approached without hesitation, but the eyes that met mine held no warmth. I felt that same chill touch my own, as if we were watching each other from either side of a long and empty stone-laden yard. It would be grey, I found myself thinking. Sunless - with weeds already showing through cracks in the rock. Hard to believe that he was close enough for me to smell the remains of last night's sacrificial feast upon his breath.

"My lord." I spoke first, inclining my head.

"Lady," he repeated the same deliberate gesture.

I looked into his eyes, showed nothing, and found nothing in return. The wife who had not given him a living heir watched the face of her husband, and spoke again - yet more distant, emotion-starved words.

"Good journey."

I retreated as swiftly as courtesy would allow, directly for my own concealed apartments.

It was Chalcione who greeted me there, standing at the entrance with her hands clasped tightly at her belly. "Mistress…" she began. I paused a few short steps away, and felt the presence of my other handmaidens close behind me on either side.

"Chalcione. Whatever you were wanting to say, I'm not about to wait forever to hear it."

The servant girl looked directly into my eyes, her own touched by tears, but there was an even deeper pain now hidden deep behind her face. She barely seemed able to find the voice to deliver her bad news.

* * *

"Mistress?" Arenthe's voice was weak as a breath as I knelt quietly at her side. She had been found by two of the other servants, both young women who arranged for her to be carried immediately to bed. She struggled to sit, but fell back again with a shallow gasp.

"Arenthe." I shifted closer. "Rest easy - I am right beside you."

"I am sorry, Lady. There is still so much work to be done, but I cannot… I…"

"Others can do the work," I told her. "Your duty is to rest, until… until you are well again."

Arenthe's eyes closed for just a moment. But finally, she opened them a mere fraction and turned to look my way.

"Lady Jocasta…?"

"What is it, Arenthe?"

I sensed my throat clench, so tightly that it brought me pain. The old woman's lids were heavy, her eyes already glazed, and a tear slipped quietly from one corner. A cold, white reflection shone from the pallor of skin which was unnervingly close to grey. "Lady, I am your slave. I know… I have no right to ask… And yet…"

"Anything," I whispered. "Ask me anything."

She opened her mouth, and sighed, chest rising as though the task of taking in any breath was as insurmountable as Sisyphus hauling his heavy stone up the same steep hill. "Daphne…" my long time servant gasped.

"I did not mean what I said to Daphne." My response was only marginally louder than her plea. "I am sorry for it. But I cannot remember a time when you were not there. You have been so good to me, for so very long. How can you have ever believed that you have no right to ask anything of me?"

"Forgive me, Lady…"

"Hush, Arenthe. There is nothing to forgive. I will take care of your daughter, and I know no person in this world who has less to be sorry for than you."


	8. Chapter 8

With the passing years, Laius' visits to my chambers were rare, as scattered and infrequent as summer snow. His journeys away were now so long that I found that there were days when I could even forget his face. Occasions passed when he was even slightly aged on his return. On one cold morning, he left at daybreak, taking Daphne with him. I said nothing, and nothing again when my husband returned without her.

"He sold her at the marketplace," said Chalcione. It had never been a question of whether it would happen - only ever a matter of when. Especially since she'd fallen from the favour of the sovereign. I told myself that it didn't matter, that it was no concern of mine what the King of Thebes did with his whores.

Strange, to think about the pale, bony child she used to be, with that small, pointed face, and hair so matted and tangled that it was more like goat's fleece than the gleaming black mane of a miniscule slave girl.

When Laius departed again just six days later, this time there was no return.

_There were stories of a monster just beyond the city gates, a beast with the face of a beautiful, exotic woman. None had lived to tell of what they had seen, and yet their tales had never failed to reach the ears of those who were still safe within the boundaries of Thebes._

_In the small hours of the night, with the moon casting silver blue across the length of my bedchamber, I watched it pass my open window, and wondered that King Laius had not yet passed the Sphinx's way. He could not have encountered her without my knowing. Traveller's who could not answer the monster's riddles were devoured in a single instant - and my husband was not one to be able to tell whatever answer it was she sought._

* * *

"Lady."

One of the palace heralds had approached the elders of the city, and the news had passed quickly among the Earth-born men. His message was delivered gravely, but beyond my ears. But I listened to the talk of the slaves, to whispers in the corridors, and finally to the elders themselves as they carried the herald's voice to me.

I knew what it was they would tell me, before even sensing the initial wave of secret conversation.

"King Laius is dead."

How had I expected to react? I could not possibly have said for certain. Not before I heard what they had to tell me, nor immediately after. So could there have been a reason to claim that the hollowness inside me was anticipated, or even anything new?

I felt nothing.

"How?" I asked the old man, with a face like the outer bark of a tree and a wiry, speckled beard - the first who had openly given me the news.

"Killed at the crossroads," the same old man responded. "In a quarrel with a travelling youth. That is what the messengers say."

"One who did not even know the man he killed was King of our city," another elder added.

_But now, by right, he will take the crown_. "What do you know of this youth?" I asked them.

"Very little, my queen. He came to us from across the mountains, through the pass, and… People are saying that he even bested the Sphinx. That is what we have heard."

_The Sphinx_? A man who could do that much would be cunning, as smart as he was likely to be strong. I found with this newfound surprise that I was already curious about this new stranger.

I nodded quietly, and turned away with my gaze cast low. "And so, we must bury the King of Thebes."

_And for this traveller, I am his to claim as well_.


	9. Chapter 9

_The traveller is tall and well muscled, with long limbs bronzed by the sun and hardened by a lengthy journey. His hair reaches to his shoulders, thick, gleaming, and sun-bleached to the colour of molten gold._

_He has introduced himself as Oedipus, a prince from the land beyond the mountain pass. And it is strange, I think, how different youth can seem when viewed through the eyes of maturity. This Oedipus cannot be long past twenty. He greets my eyes as a man so young, so vital that I must remind myself that he is older than I had been on the day I was wedded to Laius._

_His approach is confident, assured. He walks with a curious limp, which I can only assume he has had for many years. It doesn't seem to present him with any real impediment - but I wonder at what hidden pain may yet accompany every one of his steps. In my mind, I am already imagining how the settled life of a Theban king may change this dark youth - this boy. But how is it certain to change him at all? Oedipus already has the build of an athlete. Young, healthy, shaped by constant exercise that he is unlikely to set aside with any ease._

* * *

I waited in the main hall, anticipating the first arrival of my future husband. Several of the Earth-born elders stood by my side with others directly behind me. As the youth drew closer, he hesitated, stiffened as though only now recognising the formality that came with crossing the inner threshold. He came alone, with not so much as a single escort, and still in the mildly tattered but flexible tunic of a man in the midst of some great journey. A broad-rimmed travelling cap was still set firmly atop his head.

His eyes - wide and hazel-amber, like a lion's - were quick to find my own. More than their colour, I noted his steady gaze, a confidence that never wavered in spite of his momentary trepidation.

"Are you the traveller?" I asked, stepping forward.

His voice when he responded was clear, confident and sweet. "Yes, Your Majesty."

I nodded quietly. "Then take me. I am yours."

Seeing the hesitation behind those same leonine eyes, I stepped forward to stand at his level. "Are you unsatisfied?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

"Not at all." Oedipus answered quickly, as though by reflex.

"You do not wish to take me as your wife?"

"I mean no offence, Lady," said Oedipus. "My concern in this matter is not for myself."

_Not for yourself_? I stepped back, now watching him with narrowed eyes. "My Lord, if what I am told is true, then you are the one who bested the Sphinx."

"Yes, your Majesty," the traveller responded. "But if what I am told is true, then the man I killed was the king - your husband. Would it not be discomfiting for you to have me take his place?"

A tight pain clenched suddenly around my heart as, for just a moment, I had to focus not to lose my balance. How could a travelling youth care so much, for the comfort of a woman he scarcely knew? Even if that woman _was _a queen? Why could it possibly matter so much?

He was handsome, though. And with those eyes… Clear and distinctive, and so very kind.

I forced a breath, desperate the move our discourse onto more accustomed ground. "My Lord." It was little more than a whisper, never meant for the ears of the watching elders. "Would you refuse a garland you won at the Games?"

Oedipus blinked, as though caught off balance himself. "Of course not. I…"

"I am your prize," I told him, a touch of deliberate fortitude returning to my voice. "Claim me as your own."

* * *

The night of our wedding was a night of the half moon, with only subdued light by which I could see my new husband. Summer had come early that year, the warmth and fine days augmenting each scent as it drifted softly inward from the gardens. A breeze tugged at the fabric of Oedipus' tunic, so that it seemed to float like a thin cloud of vapour - barely as much as touching his skin. With the light of Selene the Moon falling like silver dust across his body, my husband resembled a wandering spirit now newly come to my bed.

"Come," I told him, reclining along its surface. Oedipus approached me, but his expression remained conflicted.

I sat up. "What is it?"

"Why ask me that?" He seemed to hesitate.

"Something troubles you, Lord. I see it in your eyes."

Oedipus sat on the edge of the bed, and sighed. "Lady Jocasta," he conceded reluctantly. "You had another husband before me, did you not?"

"Laius." With that name, a hard chill came back to my voice. "He was king of this city before you arrived."

He studied my face like a man captivated by a smooth-edged sculpture. "And yet I do not find any sadness in your eyes."

Tension came far too quickly to my face. I could sense it in my jaw, together with the touch of coldness in my eyes. Every word I spoke was distant and controlled. Not my words. Not my voice. "I have shed my tears for Laius," I told my new husband. "My duty was to weep for him, and so that is what I have done. But I am yours now. I have not been his for many days."

_Besides_. The thought is clear inside my mind. _I died long ago. On that day, who was nearby to weep for Jocasta_?

His expression changed again. "Lady," he said, and pushed away a lock of my hair that had fallen loose across my eyes. "I am sorry, but I cannot believe, as you do, that marriage is death. You are far too beautiful. I know we were brought together as a matter of state, but I… I don't _want _to lie with any woman who has no desire to lie with me. It would not be the same."

I watch him from the bed, but now my face is thoughtful - and I can sense that I am no longer wearing the same deceptive mask. "My Lord, I…"

His skin was lit by the flame of a single candle, tracing its edges with a smooth blade of orange light. I found myself watching him - the line of his muscles, the remarkable confidence with which he moved. He turned back to face me, and a flush of warmth expanded from the depths of my body, drawn as readily towards him as though against my will. But this was not against my will. Oh _no_, it was not…

Whatever else, I had to have this man.

"I wish it, my lord Oedipus," I whispered to him. "I want to lie with you."

_Demeter was told that her daughter would return to her for nine months of the year, and with this promise, Persephone departed from the Underworld_. And for this time, a single moonlit night, Jocasta daughter of Oenameus was brought back to the world of life.


	10. Chapter 10

Antigone was laughing.

She bent to clasp the waist of a painted wooden horse, wrapping around it all the fingers of one her chubby right hand. "Come here, then." Seated on a nearby bench, Chalcione lifted her from behind and set her down upon her knee.

Chalcione's hair was threaded with strands of grey - sooner to change than my own dark locks had been. But I saw without trouble that her belly had started to expand beneath the shifting fabric of her robe. Antigone squirmed as she leant against it, and giggled as her middle-aged nurse now whispered some vague conspiracy in her ear.

Her dark curls bobbed and swayed with every movement, and her obsidian eyes sparkled brightly as she stared in the direction of her sister. Further down the hall, the boys were sparring with their repeatedly echoing wooden swords.

_My children_, I thought, and corrected myself with a renewed smile of subdued delight. _No. _Our _children_. Unlike my first husband, Oedipus had been proud to call these peculiar, half-sized new creatures his own.

At a distant corner of the room, the smallest of them reached upward like a curious cub, eager to grasp a loosened strand of Chalcione's hair. The skin of my servants face soon gathered around her eyes like stiff, thin parchment. She was old, for one to bear a child. So was I, but even while I carried my sons and daughters, the time had been remarkably without incident.

_Is it possible_? I wondered, just as I had so many times before. _Might the gods have allowed me to be fortunate at last_?

* * *

"Tiresias," our sons exclaimed, their rowdy, juvenile cries jostling around each other like bells were sounding in the courtyard. The old man's most recent guide was tense, I noticed - startled at the suddenness of their approach. But Tiresias stopped the youth from reacting, with a firmer grip upon his arm.

The elderly seer was changed - in the colour of his hair, and the additional creases upon his leather-brown face. But in all essentials - in strength, and bearing - he remained very much the same.

"What have you brought for us, Tiresias?" one asked, his excitement barely contained. His brother chimed in without missing a step.

"What new stories do you have?"

"Tell us," they pestered. "Please, Tiresias. Please."

"Soon," was his promise, which carried even above their wailing protests of disappointment. "Stories are far better told at night, anyhow. When the Moon outshines the Sun, and the firelight glows in the family hearth."

The boys echoed his words, faces turning to a pair of open grins.

A moment later, Chalcione had ushered the pair away, and Tiresias stopped where he was, and looked up towards the place where I waited with Oedipus. "Lord King. Lady Queen. I formally request your hospitality."

It was uncanny, how easily he was able to locate us both, even though neither Oedipus nor I had spoken a word since his arrival.

"It is an honour to receive you in Thebes, Lord Tiresias."

Oedipus had grown even more handsome with the passing of years, the slender beauty of youth now overlaid with the strength and wisdom of maturity. "Come. You must dine at our table on this day, and tell us of your travels through this world."

Tiresias inclined his head, and allowed his guide to lead him into the palace behind my husband and I. But there was no happiness in his smile of polite acceptance.

* * *

There was something comforting in a stroll through the queen's apartments, in allowing the warm touch of Helios through each open window to caress my hair and skin. I passed by the place where the click of my loom had occasionally tapped out a soft, soothing rhythm… On this day, it was still in the corner, all light and shadow, and slender straight lines. Something about my own steady steps might even have eased the aches of middle age.

Perhaps these subtle pains in my muscles were merely those which the gods had given to every mortal woman who had ever lived upon their world. But then, there was a certain frequency that would come with the advance of added years.

Running a hand lightly over the surface of my loom, I smiled to myself, and thought of my daughters. Antigone and Ismene would be grown one day. They too would sit in the sun by the inner windows, tending their looms and creating spider-fine chitons to drape around their bodies.

_Oedipus is a good man_. It is all that I can hope. _He will find good men to be their husbands_.

A glance through the window was an added surprise - to find a lone figure standing beneath the broad old oak in the centre of the garden. Light and shadow was stark upon the gleaming white of Tiresias' hair.

* * *

He turned upon his staff as I approached along the immaculately sculpted path. "It has been a long time, Lady Jocasta."

"And yet you never fail to recognise my footsteps."

How could he know so unfailingly, every time I was coming towards him? So many years since I had seen him last, and still he had yet to tell me his secret. As he smiled, the creases grew deeper at the corners of his eyes. I found that I was smiling in return - but there was more sadness than pleasure in his expression. I stopped just outside of the tree's broad shadow. "Why is your guide not with you?" I inquired.

"Medon has other duties, besides trailing after this old man," responded Tiresias. "And I have more delicate matters to attend to, none of which are for others to witness."

I answered him with a shallow farewell bow - and spoke clearly to be sure that he knew I understood. "Then I will not keep you any longer."

"No, Lady." Tiresias' voice deepened, turning grim. I stopped when I noted the determination behind his tone. Almost a command. "Stay. My business is with you."


	11. Chapter 11

"You have known me for many years, Lady - is that not so?"

And Tiresias had been a dark and leathery old man, even then. I saw no reason not to argue with this reasoning.

He continued. "And you might say that I have known you even longer. Since you were an infant, clinging to the shoulders of your wetnurse."

_Arenthe_. I remembered her face, and turned away from the kindly white eyes of this elderly man. However briefly, he must not see this moment of sadness in mine.

"And I have trusted your counsel for more years than I can remember, Lord Tiresias. I do not speak for my husband, but I believe that he has equal faith. Your arrival has always been a welcome sight in Thebes. But I still do not see why you would want to come here, if only to re-open the same old wounds which have already taken a lifetime to heal?"

"Because I have seen your future." The old man's answer was soft, but grave. "The gods have chosen to reveal it through my dreams - and dreams, Lady Jocasta, are not to be cast aside like yesterday's scraps. Or were you truly so quick to forget all that I have taught you?"

"I have forgotten nothing." Tiresias' lessons - indeed, all that I had learnt from my years with Laius - were as clear and sharp as the Sun now gleaming through the leaves above us. The expression on the face of my companion changed a little when he heard the bitterness rising into my voice. Although blind, his eyes squinted, and held me captive in their aimless gaze.

He clasped the staff he carried, and spoke - but in a softer voice than I would have expected at that moment. "Tell me. What do you know of this man whose bed you share? How much can you tell me of his story - or even of your own?"

"I know as much as I have ever needed," I protested, but even then my protests were losing conviction. "Oedipus was a traveller, slayer of the Sphinx, and a man for whom I have come to care as deeply as I have for any other. Those are the only things I have any need to know. His home may have been many miles from the throne of Thebes, but he is as welcome here as the Earth-born themselves. Particularly now as Laius had no living heir."

The old seer stepped forward, shaking his head with a sadness as profound as the deepest valleys of Poseidon's kingdom. It took him some time to lift his gaze again. "What if I were to tell you that he does?"

I laughed, a sharp, cruel sound. "If that were true, I cannot believe that it would pass me by without notice."

But Tiresias shared neither my laughter, nor the shock that had forced it from me. His voice remained unbearably sad and level. "In my dreams, Lady, there was a man come from the mountain border. A shepherd with a message for the king."

_What message_? But I remained silent, hearing nothing but the old man's words, and the pulse of my own heart - doubting that I would have been able to speak, even with any idea of what to say.

"I know the story he will tell your husband," continued Tiresias. "This man knows something of your family. In particular, of a child abandoned to the Fates some thirty years ago."

"My son," I gasped - before I was even aware that the thought had entered my mind. Each breath closed around me, so tight that it was painful. But whatever pain I felt from this news - for the moment, it did not matter. This was my child. The one secret I had not found the power to tell, even to Oedipus my husband. Even the unhappiness in Tiresias' eyes was not enough to dissuade me from seeking the answer. "My first son, by Laius. Tell me, Lord Tiresias…"

"I am sorry." The old man was already turning away. "I cannot reveal any more at this time."

"What do you mean?" I demanded, all protocol forgotten as I raced forward to block his path. "At least let me know if he has grown to be a man. Is he healthy? Is there even a chance that we may meet again…?"

"For now, he believes that all is well."

"For now?"

"That is all I am able to say, Lady."

"Then why say anything at all?" I shouted to him, loudly enough that two of the groundskeepers stopped and turned in the midst of their work.

Tiresias' shoulders hunched a little as he gripped his staff with two dark hands. I noticed that his knuckles were especially pronounced, hard and knobbled like beads of wood on an abacus. "Something is starting, Lady Jocasta." I heard his voice, even as he no longer faced me directly. "I can do nothing to halt its progress - only to warn you. The power to heal Thebes' wounds will come only with true knowledge, and I cannot make this journey in your stead."

"Then where is the bounty in this knowledge of yours?" I challenged the old man, but was no longer certain of what I sought from him - even had I believed there was a hope of receiving it.

"You will know before long," whispered Tiresias. "On the day when a blind man finds his sight."

I shook my head. Was that all this old man had to show me? Riddles, half clues, and still more confusion? "Do not say such things," I told him. "I am happier now than I have been in all the years of my life. If you truly care about my fortune, as you claim, then you have to appreciate that much, at least."

"The gods do not allow complacency, Lady," said Tiresias. "Their gifts to the mortal world are far too often cruel - and suffering is the cruellest gift of all."

* * *

_I told him nothing of those things which had haunted my dreams. City walls coated - in places, even flooded - with the blood of its people; the wailing of women carried high upon the breeze. Their hair, coated with the ash of many hundred of funerary pyres. Their pallid, blistered faces, glistening with sweat and tears - scratched almost to bone by blood-tainted fingers. The cries of children in distress and desperation, discordantly mingled with the people's song of grief._

_From horizon to horizon, billowing smoke cloaked the sky. A putrid stench rose from the soil below. And when I woke, it was the images of my children lingering grotesquely before my eyes. The illusion faded, but not the feelings it aroused. And the question. Why would the dream caster Morpheus have taken the form of my sons and daughters?_


	12. Chapter 12

I lay with Oedipus on the nights after Tiresias' departure, listening to the whispers of his voice against my cheek. But something was very different in the feel of his caresses. Or possibly, I thought - suddenly finding myself in contemplation of the entire bedchamber - could it not have been in the reactions of my own body?

I was distant, as though it were someone else's skin that he was touching. And cold as if our naked skin had never come into contact. Even as Oedipus brought himself as close as any man could be, my responses were no more nor less than those of a detached but dutiful wife. I, who in times long past had responded as a lover.

Gradually, the touch of my husband faltered, becoming stilted and uncertain. I sensed him hesitate, and finally, he separated himself from me entirely.

"Am I not pleasing to you, Husband?" I sat up, noting the hunch in his shoulders, and the light reflecting from the surface of his eyes. My voice was husky - half stolen away. "Is something the matter?"

"That, you must tell me," he replied, peering deeply into my eyes.

I returned his gaze, noting each subtle shift in his expression. His eyes flicked left and right, so close that I saw the flecks of speckled brown scattered across the width of both his irises. So strange in the silver light of the moon - and yet, so familiar.

I gasped - only marginally able to stop myself from recoiling. But what was it, that I had seen in my husband's face? Elusive shades of a time once past, as difficult to capture as the smoke of burning incense - of a man I had always thought long dead.

Even this illusion retreated to a memory, leaving only a half forgotten feeling, as of having woken from a particularly disturbing dream. I did not chase it, did not dare to look too closely. Instead I shivered, allowing the moment to pass from view - and lowered my gaze to avoid that of my husband.

"It is nothing, Lord Oedipus," I promised. "A breeze through the window. That is all."

"Shall I call one of the servants?" Oedipus inquired. "We could always have them light a fire."

I shook my head. "No need. It has already passed."

_Even so, it _was _rather cold_.

* * *

The following Spring brought with It a fragrance, floating upwards and spreading with the outward advance of a gradually warming breeze. It was slight at first, as the days lengthened - no more than a minute shift in the air. The smell of frost had been crisp and clear, and was still not entirely pushed aside. But the scent that replaced it was not of flowers, nor the moist new growth of leaves. It was stronger when the wind rose over the palace walls, but had changed to a bitterly painful stench. Of rot and putrefaction, tinged with the smoke of funeral pyres that rose from the streets to meet the sky above.

"Kallis-" I stood by an open window, a small, dark servant standing watchfully at my side. The fresh hue of morning was darkened by a chorus of shrill, ascending voices. "What is that sound?"

"Women of the city, Lady. They mourn the passing of those they once had loved."

"Once loved?" For some reason her words were strange to me.

"Yes, Lady," responded Kallis. "Husbands, brothers and wives, all felled by Apollo's arrows."

I felt a piercing chill in the very core of my bones, my next inward breath as laboured as if I had plunged into a frigid winter lake. My dream… It had left a shadow in my mind, of hungry consummation, whose shape I never wanted to look at directly. And now, was I to believe these nightmares were coming to pass?

"Why so many voices?"

"There is a plague in Thebes," came the young maid's rueful answer. "They have closed the market, and are gathering at the temples. People say…" She lowered her gaze.

"Yes?" I prompted impatiently.

Kallis' voice had dropped to a breathless whisper. "They say, Lady… People are saying that the gods have been angered."

"Angered?" I demanded, the shock of her news leaving me dizzy. "How?"

Kallis' dark eyes glistened like distant stars. I saw her wince, and for a moment, her face was pale. "I… don't know, Mistress."

I had learnt only a little of Kallis' past. Her mother was Egyptian, and she had been brought to the Theban palace two years earlier - a gift from one of the wealthy merchants, just sailed from the Corinthian docks. Her eyes still showed occasional flashes of otherwise hidden timidity. Her former master had beaten her whenever he was drunk or angry, or merely in need of a means to vent his frustrations. But at that moment, neither of these held true for me.

"Of course not." I turned away. "Who would there be to tell you?"

The songs of grief faded with late evening, but were never once completely gone. I was certain, even in a world where little certainty could ever be allowed, that the smell of funeral pyres would haunt us long into the coming night. Even with this understanding, there was one reminder that I could not banish from my whirling, tumultuous thoughts - of all that Tiresias had told me about dreams.


	13. Chapter 13

"Come here, Chalcione," I commanded. "Give Ismene to Eucleia. I have another task for you."

"Yes, Lady," responded Chalcione. She obeyed, passing the baby to the smaller young servant. She stroked Ismene's honey coloured hair with one hand, as her other rested on the bulge beneath her own tunic.

I masked the uneasy anticipation rising from my stomach. But my servant was approaching with more calm in her steps than I had felt in many days. She slowed as she drew closer. A momentary concern touched her brow, but was just as quickly hidden.

"My husband has summoned me to the central hall," I explained. "I wish for you to accompany me."

"Yes, Lady."

I was under no obligation to have a maidservant with me on this day, and gave no further acknowledgement of Chalcione's presence. She fell into step behind me, and kept her eyes lowered as the two of us traced a familiar path through the palace's cool stone passages. Even so, I took comfort from the knowledge that I would not have to face this summons alone.

* * *

"This is an unprecedented crisis, Lord Oedipus. Possibly the worst that Thebes has seen since the reign of King Cadmus. Your people are asking if the gods have abandoned them, or whether it is their king. If anything is to be done, the time is now."

Even had I not heard the voices of my husband's advisors, it would have taken me little trouble to guess what they had said. The troubled hesitation on the face of my husband was indication enough. I hesitated in a small annexe by the entrance to our private apartments, concealed between two pillars and with Chalcione standing silent and pensive at my side.

"No," said Oedipus. "The Oracle at Delphi is many days from here, over treacherous terrain, and always with the risk of encountering thieves and bandits. I have made great journeys before, but I cannot abandon my people at this time."

My own eyes barely caught the troubling change, which passed behind the king's expression and left me with a lingering sense of unease. Even the clearest afterimage in my memory refused to allow me a truthful understanding of what I had seen.

_And why this reluctance to seek the will of Apollo_? I asked, of any gods who might have known my thoughts. Would the Oracle's counsel not be the surest way to tell us how this plague might end? I noticed some uncertainty in Chalcione's eyes, but still I said nothing. It was not the queen's place to demand an explanation of her king, and especially not before a gathering of the Council.

"Would you trust another to make this journey in your stead?" inquired the quiet but audible voice of one elderly nobleman, who whistled softly with every syllable. The thick and tangled hair of his beard seemed to stir like the quills on a waking hedgehog, as he pursed his already sunken lips.

"We have seers in Thebes, do we not?" Oedipus responded with an impatient challenge. "Why send a man all the way to Delphi when we can seek the will of the gods from here?"

"Zeus speaks through the flight of birds, Poseidon through the tides, and the oldest gods through the mutterings of augurs at the sacrificial feast," the same old man reminded him. "Apollo speaks through the Oracle - and these are his arrows which have felled our people."

Oedipus studied the old man's bearded face, revealing nothing of what thoughts may have been stirred by his suggestion. The elder stepped back. But what I had seen in his faded eyes had lost none of its previous intensity.

"My Lord." Finally, I stepped into the hall.

The circle of advisors inclined their heads as I strode into their midst. But my own eyes were focused on my husband, who stood directly before me. I was pleased to see that the affection in his eyes had not dimmed, even as it came from far behind a mask of detached but courtly familiarity. He did well to hide the shades of anxiety deep beneath his expression - but his disguise was entirely short of perfect. The constant worry had already darkened the skin beneath his eyes.

"Lady Jocasta." He spoke warmly. "My wife and most beloved queen. I have summoned you here for your knowledge of our history. I have something to ask of you, which may yet save the future of Thebes."

"I will do all I can, my husband."

"I am pleased," he assured me. But then he paused, averting his gaze, shoulders heaving as he gathered courage from a single deep, slow breath. He looked at me again before he continued. "You know that I am a foreigner in this kingdom - a traveller from Corinth. You would know that none of the Elders here have access to this palace's most intimate secrets. Things that only we and the gods may know."

My husband paused again. "I am sorry," he said. "But I _must _ask. Do you know of a reason - any reason at all - why they may have wished to send us this plague?"

My chest was tight. But I managed somehow to find a voice. "No, Lord."

"Jocasta. Please." There was urgency in his whispered tone. Stepping forward suddenly, he clasped both of my hands in his. I glanced furtively at the nearest stern, grey-bearded Elder. But my younger husband's display had lost none of its fervour even before this assembly of stately witnesses.

"Consider the children," he insisted to me. "We have been fortunate so far, but it may not be this way forever. I do not want to consider what may happen, should either of them fall prey to this sickness. Therefore I urge you, if you can recall even the most seemingly trivial matter, you must tell it to me. What do you believe has caused the gods offence? Do you know of a possible answer? Any at all?"

I thought of my dreams, of the dimly remembered images and the subsequent ill feeling that had continued to haunt my days. Even now, I sensed the same persistent memories rising in me once again. I hesitated, glanced around at the faces of every old man in the room, and back at my husband's clear brown eyes.

"No, Lord. There is nothing."

He nodded, turning away, and spoke in a controlled, authoritative tone to his advisors. "We must seek the counsel of Apollo," he told them. "Prepare an announcement for our people. I have decided to send a man to Delphi."


End file.
